


Falling

by ysse_writes



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-09
Updated: 2011-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:47:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysse_writes/pseuds/ysse_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl falls from the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> The characters and situations of The Vision of Escaflowne (天空のエスカフローネ Tenkū no Esukafurōn) belong to Yumiko Tsukamoto, Hajime Yatate, and Shoji Kawamori, Sunrise Studios, Bandai Entertainment, et al. I claim nothing except insanity and these stories, which are proof thereof.

She fell from the sky.

An odd occurrence, even on Gaea, where ships flew, fortresses floated, guymelefs soared, and the odd Draconian still showed wing. But she did none of those things, and she did nothing to halt her descent, not even scream. She fell, simply fell, fast and hard, like a rock, plummeting to the ground. 

A girl fell from the sky. Odd, perhaps, but not impossible. And definitely not inconceivable.

Ah, no. That was far from the most mind-boggling sight the Dragonslayers saw that day. Far more unbelievable was the sight of the red Alseides, reaching out one massive hand and, almost gently, plucking the falling girl from the sky.

 

"Lord Dilandau?" The Dragonslayers were used to Dilandau's tantrums by now, but their general was usually of a better temperament after one of their sorties.

"Where is she?" he growled. 

Guimel blinked. "My Lord?"

"The girl. The one I captured. Where is she?"

"She is in the medical bay, General," a cool voice answered.

"Lord Folken!" Dilandau scowled at the tall sorcerer. "In the medical bay?" he demanded. "She is a captive, not a guest. She should be in the dungeons!"

"A dead captive will offer no answers, General," answered Folken. "And answers are what we require."

" _I_ will ask the questions," Dilandau growled. "She is my captive."

"Yes," nodded Folken. "And we shall speak about this... impulse... at another time. In the meantime, the Emperor wishes to speak with you."

"After I see the girl," snapped Dilandau.

" _Now_."

 

"She fell from the sky?" Dornkirk questioned, suspicion heavy in his voice. “Is that truly what he claims?”

Folken nodded, trying to hide his impatience. "Yes, my Lord. And the truth is I do not see why Lord Dilandau would lie about such a thing."

"How?" demanded the Emperor.

"We do not know, my Lord."

"Where did she come from?"

"We do not know that either, my Lord."

"Unravel this mystery, Folken. _Fast_."

Folken nodded. "As you command, my Lord."

 

Dilandau opened the door to his bedroom and found the girl chained to the wall, lying, still unconscious on a hastily set-up cot.

He smiled, darkly satisfied that his men had followed his instructions.

The doctor had basically cleared her. Almost miraculously, he found no broken bones, or signs of internal bleeding. She had no visible wounds, showed no signs of trauma. She was simply unconscious, dead to the world, and showed no sign of waking up any time soon.

He had a theory,that was what she was doing here. Van Fannel of Fannelia had a girl. A girl from the Mystic Moon, who saw visions and helped him spot guymelefs in their stealth mode. A girl who had appeared, out of the blue, out of nowhere.

Now he had one, too.

He moved closer, to the cot, squatting down to take a closer look at his captive

She looked nothing like the other one. This one had long dark red hair. Like wine. Like fire. He pried one of her eyelids open, peering into her pupil. Gray, her eyes were gray. He pried open the other one, just to check. Yep, both gray. Like ashes. Like charcoal.

He liked charcoal. And he definitely liked fire.

He slapped her, hard, hard enough to leave a mark on her cheek, hard enough to propel her face to the other side, flinging her hair every which way. Still, she didn't respond. Gently, almost tenderly, he brushed the hair away from her face, touched the pale mark on her cheek. Then he hit her again. And again.

Disgusted with her unresponsiveness, he flung her down.

It wasn't any fun, hitting things that didn't scream.

 

It was two more days before she opened her eyes.

By then he was bored with her, thinking of ordering her into the dungeons or back into the med bay. But the way she was so frightened of him amused him again, the way she scuttled around like a frightened bird, trapped by a playful cat.

She still didn't scream. In fact she never made a sound. During the first few hours she would open her mouth, her terror intensifying as no sounds came out. He found he didn't mind her silence, because her eyes gave him all the terror he needed to feed on.

 

“He’s beating her again,” Viole whispered as he and Dallet kept watch outside of Dilandau-sama’s rooms. “That poor girl.”

“Don’t think about it,” advised his friend. “It’s none of our business.”

“But...” Viole bit his lip. “Can’t we..?”

“What would we do?” hissed Dallet, still careful to keep his voice low. “Where would she go? He’s all she has, all she knows.” He took a deep breath, shaking his head somberly. “He’s all we have.”

 

He burst into the room and slammed the door behind him.

The DragonSlayers, his DragonSlayers. Molded in his image. Young, brash, beautiful. The perfect warriors.

Dead, all dead. Slashed into nothingness by Van Fannel, by Escaflowne. He could hear still hear them scream

A movement near the bed, and he raised his eyes to meet those of the girl's.

"Get out," he snarled.

She nodded, placing the bundle of linens on the bed. Retreating towards the door, the chain around her ankles making much too much noise for his liking. Fuming, he pounced upon her, his anger finding a target. That was all she was to him, a punching bag, a release. He hit her from behind, sending her crashing down onto the floor.

As usual, she didn't fight, made no sound, only tried to scurry away on her knees, but he refused to let that deter him this time. He kicked her a few times, hauled her up and then hit her again. He didn't stop until a particularly hard slap sent her reeling into the wall.

She hung onto the wall for a moment, trembling, her shoulders heaving, bracing herself. When he didn't follow, she turned, looking at him warily. He'd split her lip again, and the knock on the wall had made her forehead bleed. And that mark on her cheek -- well, it never got a chance to really heal.

For some reason the sight of her blood enflamed him further.

He watched silently as she blinked once, dazedly, then shook her head as if to clear it.

"Come here," he growled, lowly. He had no doubt she'd obey. She always obeyed.

She took one trembling step towards him. Then another. Then, she swayed, her chains tripping her, and fell on to the floor.

She didn't get up again.

 

He was just as surprised as she was when she opened her eyes and found him leaning over her, washing her face with a damp cloth.

 He looked at his hand, as if it was an alien object, and then dropped the cloth as if it scalded him.

 She blinked up at him, confused, as he glared down at her.

"Don't get any ideas," he growled. "There's just no one left to do it, that's all."

She kept looking at him.

"Dallet, Miguel, Guimel," he grumbled, "they're all dead. Morons." Almost unconsciously, he had picked up the cloth again, and was now wiping at the drying blood on her lip. "Bunch of useless idiots."

She winced as his attempts to clean her wound succeeded only in reopening it.

Disgusted, he threw the cloth down. "I'm going to kill Van of Fanelia for this," he announced, standing up and stalking to the window. "I am going to use my knife on him, gut him and then peel the skin from his flesh, then the flesh from his bones. I am going to keep him alive till he's mad with pain and then I'm going to grab his heart and crush it with my hand." He ranted on, painting his plans for Van Fanel's death in vivid and morbid detail.

Something fell on his hand, warm and wet, and he recoiled. He looked back at the girl, prepared to scream if he saw the slightest hint of triumph, or pity, in her eyes.

But she had fallen asleep again, weariness winning over the pain. She slept deeply, almost peacefully.

He walked over to his bed. A small trail of blood trickled down her lip. He leaned down, brushed the hair off her face. He kissed her on the brow, then on the mouth, gently licking the blood away. Breathing harshly, he rested his forehead on hers, careful not to jostle her.

"Don't get any ideas," he repeated, roughly. "You're all I have left, that's all."

 

He watched her sleep, slumped in a chair.

He must've fallen asleep. 

He dreamt that she woke in the night, suddenly sitting up on his bed, as if startled from a dream. He dreamt that her eyes were silver instead of gray. He dreamt she looked at him, and for a moment her eyes burned with anger, then pain, then overflowed with tears. He dreamt she reached down to touch the chains on her ankles and they fell off, and free, she walked over to the open window, looking at the moon. He dreamt she wept, putting her face in her hands. And she looked back at him, still weeping, as he slept slumped in his chair.

"Strange," he dreamt her whisper. "When you kissed me, you tasted sweet."

Then he dreamt that wings burst out of her back, and she flew away.

He must've fallen asleep. Because when he opened his eyes he was alone.

 

He stood at the rail, looking down at the distant ground. In his hands he held a rose, for no reason at all but that he felt like it.

How fast would he fall, he wondered, if he stepped off?

Who would be there to catch him?

Dallet, Miguel, Viole, Gatty, Schesta, Guimel – dead, all dead. Morons. Where was the glory in dying like that? Idiots.

And what use was a slave who didn't know her place? They had found her, dead, as she would have been had he not caught her that day.

He hadn’t changed anything after all.

If she had had wings, there'd been no sign of them. But then, there was hardly anything of her left. Falling from almost eight thousand feet can break a guymelef into tiny pieces, never mind what it could do to a human body.

"Stupid girl," he grumbled. "Jumping out of the window... She did this just to spite me."

 **  
_You're all I have left, that's all._   
**

Something flashed through his mind: a weeping child, dark nights of fear and loneliness. **_No, don't leave me alone! Don't leave me alone!_**

"Alone," he whispered to himself. "Alone."

 He fell to the floor of the ramp, weeping.

Alone.

 

 

 

THE END

copyright [JCSA](mailto:jcsalbano@GMAIL.COM) 2004


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